1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information handling systems and more particularly to restoration of an image backup using information from other information handling systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
It is known to provide information handling system environments with cloud storage. Cloud storage refers to a dataspace, often stored within server farms based in remote locations which may be accessed via the Internet, that functions as storage (e.g., for backing up) information from information handling systems. This dataspace is often leased by an organization to provide for information backup off site in case of disaster (fire, theft, etc). Access speed may be limited due to the average bandwidth of the Internet connection. Techniques have been developed, such as allowing bytes to relatively slowly be transferred (i.e., to drizzle) to the dataspace, to address the bandwidth issues.
These backups are increasingly likely to include images of the client information handling systems, which can be used to restore an information handling system to a fully bootable and functional state quickly. Backup images of a system can comprise the operating system, device drivers, installed applications, user preferences, user data, etc. Backing up the entire information handling system is desirable to facilitate a full restoration of a ‘crashed’ information handling system. An entire backup is also desirable so that a user can have peace of mind that everything on the information handling system is backed up. Thus, when and if the reinstallation of the backed up information is desired, the user does not have to rebuild the operating system, drivers, applications and data. The user may revert the information handling system back to a point in time when it was working The price of online storage is quickly decreasing to make the required storage affordable.
Restoring a complete information handling system image from an Internet based backup can be a very long process. Once the information handling system boots to a CD or other media, the information handling system can begin the process of pulling down bits from the dataspace. This process can potentially take many days on an average server message block (SMB) type connection. Failure of the link during the retrieval process often aborts the restore operation.